


Baby Be Mine

by Michelle_A_Emerlind



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead - All Media Types
Genre: Bottom!Rick, Canon verse, Character Study, Collars, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Ownerhsip Dynamics, Post-Terminus AU, Power Dynamics, Rickyl Writer's Group, Rough Sex, top!Daryl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:18:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4580496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michelle_A_Emerlind/pseuds/Michelle_A_Emerlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl and Rick run into problems on a run that lead to self-discovery. Who knew that Daryl desired so desperately to own something. And that Rick desired so desperately to give it to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby Be Mine

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have to make several notes about this one...
> 
> 1\. This was written for the Trope Challenge that the Rickyl Writer's Group started last weekend. The challenge was to pick a familiar trope in fanfiction writing and just go for it. So I picked "slave fic." On another note still regarding the Writer's Group, anyone is free to join! We have a chat that we get on at night sometimes and most of us only know each other from there (look on my Tumblr for when I reblog the link and information or look at 1lostone's Tumblr to see it as well!). The group is fun and casual and we mostly just sit around and talk about Rickyl with the occasional challenge that you can choose to opt in or opt out of. We love making new friends! 
> 
> 2\. Part of why I decided to go with this particular idea has to do with the discussions of top!Rick/bottom!Rick in the fandom. I'm a versatile person myself, but I've been thinking recently, "What are the reasons that I can see for Rick wanting to bottom?" So I decided to explore that avenue! Hope this sheds some light on how I, at least, see Rick's sexual preferences and leadership intersecting. 
> 
> 3\. Thanks to the lovely [skarlataha](http://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/profile), who always listens to my ideas when I won't shut up about them and helped me write and edit this work. You are awesome, dear! 
> 
> 4\. And thanks to [MermaidSheenaz](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidSheenaz/profile), who pushed me to explore the characters' motivations (particularly Daryl's) to really get at the heart of why this kind of relationship works for these two characters in this particular setting. Thanks for all your betaing! You are a gift to the fandom!

Daryl is a damn good study of character. Ultimately, it’s the reason for everything that he does. It’s the reason why Merle never fooled him with his gruff bullshit, why he followed Merle around like glue for most of his life, that ability to see something deep down within his brother when others just saw muddy Georgia trash. It's the reason, too, why Daryl follows Rick around now, despite his eyes that sometimes go unfocused, despite how his steps might seem heavy at times.

And so when he and Rick round the corner and they see the group of about thirty or so staring at them with locked jaws and closed fists, Daryl takes in the situation pretty fucking quickly and files each of these bastards in his mental log as downright dangerous. Within the space of three seconds, Daryl knows all there is to know. Half of the assholes are tough--big and burly or lanky, but mean looking. They have the spark in their eyes, that kind of flash Michonne gets with her katana or the cold, calculating way that Maggie has learned to swing her gun. It’s the crossbow moment, Carol’s buck knife, the Python, and Daryl’s skin tightens.

The other half, though, are downcast. Tucked down shoulders and submissive eyes, shuffling feet and hunched muscles. And collars on their necks. Dog collars.

Daryl calculates his limited options. He’s leading with Rick trailing behind him, so if Rick _has_ seen the group, he’s only just seen them and is not in the position to react in the lightning quick way that Daryl can just a foot ahead of him. And with it only being him and Rick out on the run, there’s no way that fighting is going to work. Fleeing is easy. And with the prison nearby, they know the woods better. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? The prison is nearby. And a group of thirty is dangerous.

So Daryl takes his balls into his hand and gambles.

He jams his elbow into Rick’s gut, hard enough for Rick to double over, but not hard enough to bruise. Rick _ooomphs_ at him and it’s clear that Rick hasn’t quite processed the situation, so Daryl grumbles in his Southern gravel voice, “Fucker lost his collar.”

Daryl feels Rick straightening his spine to stand, but he doesn’t look over. He makes eye contact with the largest, burliest, most fist-clenching man of the group and holds it. The guy narrows his eyes, studies Daryl and then flickers his gaze to Rick. Rick keys in and freezes, halfway up from his bent position. “You from Bailey’s group?” The man asks them.

Daryl grunts. “Nah. Spent a couple of nights with ‘em, though.” Rick darts his eye to Daryl like a rushing rabbit, but Daryl keeps his muscles loose, keeps his stance strong, but easy. There ain’t any weakness here, he thinks at the guy.

“You don’t like crowds?” the man asks.

Daryl shrugs. “Crowds tend to die,” he answers. “Stuck with a couple ‘fore they toppled over. Got kind of tired of being a guard dog to a pack of pussies.”

The man laughs, then, a strong bellied laugh and the rest of the group visibly relaxes. Daryl doesn’t, but he pretends like he does and then the man holds out a hand, dirty and wide. “Cropper.”

Daryl grunts and slaps his palm down with maximum force, squeezes the man’s hand and puts his biceps into it. “Dixon.”

Cropper nods and they shake hands for longer than they should, neither one feeling like backing down. Eventually, Cropper releases his hand and turns to smack a kid in his twenties on the back of the head. The kid jerks and reaches for his backpack, hands it to Cropper with the practiced ease of servitude. Cropper takes the bag and digs into it, pulls out two collars. Daryl narrows his eyes.

The first is black and spiked. The collar of a rottweiler owned by a man who also owns a corvette that roars and guts its engine too early, too hard. The second is...pink. Neon pink. With little rhinestones dotting around the leather and a pretty little jewel tiara set in the center. Cropper grunts and glances up, gives Rick a long look. “Looks like a bitch,” he says to Daryl and tosses the pink collar his way.

Daryl catches it with one hand and shrugs. “Like ‘em with fight in ‘em,” he says and now’s the dangerous part. Rick’s got to have the fucking thing on and Daryl’s not so confident that him giving it to Rick and Rick putting it on of his own volition is going to make a point. So Daryl’s going to place it on him. Which means he has to turn his back to Cropper.

Daryl turns, his heels moving with the earth like the liquid of a snake’s body, and makes damn sure that Rick’s sightline with Cropper is clear, that he can grab and shoot if needed. Daryl lifts the collar up and unbuckles it, slides it around Rick’s neck rough. Rick is glaring at him and mouths, “ _You dick_.”

“ _One of us had to_ ,” Daryl mouths back and buckles it into place. “ _Whistle run_.”

Rick nods once, quick, with just a bare inclination of his head and Daryl knows by the tick in his body and the look in his eyes that they understand each other. There’s no fleeing just yet. No way they can lead these bastards back to the prison. So this needs to be a “quiet of night” kind of getaway. A slip into the darkness and then retreat. But Daryl’s going to be damned if there’s not a plan in place. Rick’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. But if he needs Daryl, if it’s death or run, they’re going to get the hell out of Dodge. And Rick needs to know how to signal him.

They spend one long second staring at each other and a whole conversation passes. _You okay?_ Daryl asks with the frown on his mouth and the furrow of his brow. Rick blinks _yes_. Daryl slides his eyes in Cropper’s direction. _Going with them for awhile?_ Rick tilts his head _I agree_. Daryl forms his mouth in the whistle for _run_. Rick forms his mouth back and that’s it.

With a twist of his heel, Daryl turns back to Cropper, gives him a firm nod, and follows the group out.

***

Daryl ends up at the front of the line with Cropper as they walk, their boots hitting the dirt at the same time in even measures. He’s jittery, on edge, but he doesn’t let it show, holding his crossbow in front of him loosely, his finger only inches from the trigger. Behind him, Rick has been flanked by two of the collared ones, who are keeping their distance, but still boxing him in.

They’re too far apart to talk. Not too far away to whistle.

Cropper glances behind them and Daryl watches from his peripheral view--examines the line of crudely cut hair that looks like it’s been shaved with a field knife. “Just the two of you, huh?” Cropper asks.

Daryl grunts and tilts his head to the side, follows Cropper’s sight line straight to Rick. Rick isn’t looking back at him, keeping his eyes turned down to the grass he’s treading over. His hands are loose at his waist, but Daryl knows how quick his fingers move.

“You let him carry,” Cropper observes. Daryl shrugs.

“Ain’t carrying, ain’t livin’,” Daryl says, feeling the weight of his crossbow like an anvil.

Cropper makes a low noise in his throat between a laugh and a grunt, all hard-edged and demanding. “Heard of fainting goats?” Daryl frowns, but shakes his head once even though he has. “Fucking livestock bred to die. Wolf comes along, goat faints in fear and the damn fucks eat it instead of something worth more value.” Cropper chuckles this time, straight up from his deep chest. “‘S why I got a bag full of collars.”

Daryl rolls his shoulders to keep them even. “Ain’t what I use him for.”

“What do you use him for?”

“Just the two of us,” Daryl says. “Use him for everything.”

Daryl watches as Cropper’s eyes drink Rick in, take in his slim hips and the flatness of his chest, the curve of his nose and the curls sticking out at the edge of his ears. Daryl knows the look pretty well, himself, and his blood boils at it, a sense of urgency and possession rising up like bile in the back of his throat. “And you let him carry.”

“Knows his place.”

“Might not always--”

“Does,” Daryl says and the word leaves no room for uncertainty. “Break ‘em first and then you own ‘em. And they never forget.”

Cropper opens his eyes a little wider, flares his nostrils and Daryl’s finger twitches before softening as Cropper’s eyes move away from both Daryl and Rick to the sky in front of them. “You’ll settle in tonight,” Cropper tells him. “We’ll feed you good.”

Daryl nods. “Appreciate it.”

“Don’t.” Cropper licks his lips and puts his hand on his belt, adjusts. “We’re just in the habit of sharing.”

***

Daryl will be damned if he’s sticking around. He was hoping for the cover of nightfall or at least the slide into dusk when the light is at its shittiest, but there’s no time for that anymore. Cropper has gone from the “dangerous” file straight into the “fuck this shit” file and there’s only so many things that Daryl is willing to gamble.

So he keeps his eyes sharp for a way out. They’re heading east of the prison, which is good. It means more familiar territory and Daryl’s feet have touched every inch of this ground for years now--from Hershel’s farm to the winter to the good months to after Terminus and then back again, the lives that they’ve so carefully stitched together as they rebuilt. No one knows the blades of these grasses like Daryl does, no one else can paint so thoroughly the barks of the trees or the cracks in the broken concrete that Daryl knows are only about three hundred feet to his right through the brush.

He gets his bearings and relaxes himself, focuses for the first half mile on breathing in and out. Anger gets you killed. And so does anxiety. So Daryl has none of either of them. To his left, Cropper keeps talking shit. He’s going on about the twenty-something kid, about how he’s got a thing for stomachs.

Daryl won’t kill him. He could, one swing up and done, but he won’t. Won’t kill the others, either. Best thing now is to get away. Tick off the boxes: 1. Not enough of a threat and 2. Too much trouble to catch. They pass the full mile line and Daryl sees the oak tree split in half by lightning, the marker he’s waited for. Time to whistle Dixie.

Daryl moves his entire body to the right at the same time that that his lips sing--one long sharp note, two follow-up short ones and then he’s diving into the heavy vegetation. He hears a grunt followed by a crack followed by the sound of flesh hitting the brush and he knows from the velocity of it, from the way it places itself, that it’s Rick and he’s fine and they’re both running.

Cropper starts yelling after they’ve already put ten feet of distance between the group and Daryl doesn’t worry about ducking behind trees or keeping himself low from bullets. That’s not what Cropper wants and that just makes Daryl flee harder. He runs at an angle, curves himself to Rick in a V-formation and Rick meets him just as they burst out from the treeline onto the concrete that Daryl knows is there and Rick’s heel moves to go west, but Daryl hisses at him and starts sprinting east.

“You sure?” Rick calls, but he’s following him and Daryl grunts that _yes_. Yes, he is sure. Yes, this is the only way out of this hot mess.

They rush across the highway, pelting it for the building that looms up ahead just off the road. Rick has his Python out and down, cop procedure, and his legs push with the perfectly refined momentum of training, his lungs taking him forward like clockwork. Daryl swings the crossbow onto his back and jerks his knife out. Better save the shot for when he needs it and prepare for the nasty shit that he’s about to run them into.

Behind them, the group starts busting out of the trees. They howl and holler at each other like chattering apes, encourage each other with vicious cackling. _Let’s get ‘em, boys. It’s a hunt tonight._

The building gets closer, its gray walls covered in dust and vines. It used to be a denim factory back in the day, used to have a town around it, but that’s all grown up and discarded now and there’s nothing there but broken glass and pipes that hang out of the walls like broken bones kicking out of flesh. Rick jerks his head toward Daryl and Daryl catches his eyes, nods and pushes himself further. The group behind them is coming forward, but they’re slower. They think they have time. But this is Daryl and Rick’s territory. This was their winter. And no one knows this building like they do.

Daryl takes point and Rick tightens his grip on the Python to cover him. They come around the corner of the back building, burst forth into a loading dock area with one stray truck still left and rusted. Daryl sprints and then flattens himself against a heavy black door, puts his fist on the handle and pauses. Rick spins, quick like summer heat, and pulls his gun up, holds.

They listen to the footsteps. Closer. Closer. Not Yet. Closer. The barest of creaks comes from behind the door, then a little scratch. Closer. Almost. Closer.

There. The first man swings around the corner, wide-grinned and wild-eyed and Daryl releases, flings the door open with purpose and jumps to Rick. Rick doesn’t fire, but still holds his cover, starts rushing backwards across the concrete.

The walkers spill out in droves--the first two falling from the flurry of the group. The others trample them on their way and the man yells, starts stumbling back and then the two groups converge into a mess of bodies.

Rick’s gun goes down to his side and he spins, falls into step beside Daryl and now they _run_. The walkers pour out and follow them and they both _know_ how many are inside--are acutely aware of how they were the ones that shut the door, they were the ones that herded and corralled and stopped up the flow of rotten bodies, they were the ones that left them slowly starving and hungered.

They round the truck and buck forward, Daryl’s legs starting to sting with the effort of his momentum. The denim factory they run alongside is long and deep and the walkers that aren’t fighting at Cropper’s group have turned to them. The way in front is clear, but they’ll have to turn the corner at the end that narrows into a little road for incoming trucks and if there are any strays that linger there, they’ll be boxed in.

Daryl tenses his muscles and readies himself, spins around the corner in point position. _Fuck_. Eight of them. But only eight.

Daryl’s knife goes into one quickly and by the time it hits the second one, the Python has rid them of three. Daryl’s boot takes another, the full force of his weight crushing and at the end of it, he leaps past the remaining two, tries to scatter. But his ears ring with the sound of “ _SHIT_!,” of Rick’s liquid drawl clipped out tight and the sound of his body hitting the ground. Daryl spins and finds a walker at his leg and another descending on him from above.

Daryl grabs the one closest, jams his knife up tight and flings it away. Rick kicks out at the one on his leg, but it won’t let go, so Daryl grabs the first thing he can reach--that damn _fucking_ pink collar and pulls.

Rick’s weight drags across the ground and the walker slams into a dead one. The bump causes it to release Rick and it breathes from its dead lungs and claws, but it’s too slow. Daryl uses the collar to pull Rick to his feet and he shoves him ahead. Rick stumbles and grunts, but then he’s up and they’re running again, falling back into formation effortlessly, their feet carrying them away and away and away, the sounds of hissing and gunshots fading into nothing.

***

They end up at the Pinewoods Motel, a little crumpled building that was shitty before the apocalypse hit and hasn’t actually changed since the world went to hell. Room twelve had always been their favorite during the winter months and so it’s what Daryl and Rick curve to now, popping the lock and sliding into the thin threadbare blankets and scratched dressers covered in dust. Rick walks quickly to the curtains on the far in, pulls them until there’s only a crack showing. From here, they have a direct line of sight down the street to the denim factory’s loading bay and Rick mumbles that the herd is still there. Daryl grunts as he locks the door, checks the bathroom and closet for walkers, and then steps over, stands by Rick and watches the bodies far away as they move.

Rick puts his Python in his belt, safety on, and reaches up with one hand, unbuckles the collar with deft fingers and throws the thing down on the bed with forceful resolution. He frowns and reaches up, starts massaging the line indentions on his neck and Daryl’s eyes catch on them, unable to look away.

“We’ll stay here for the night,” Rick says and Daryl blinks, the switch of leadership jarring and for a surprising moment, uncomfortable. “Make sure they clear out. So we don’t lead them back.” Daryl nods, but his mind is back on the road with Cropper. “Hey,” Rick says and Daryl becomes slowly aware that he’s missing things, gaps in Rick’s sentences. Rick ducks his head to catch Daryl’s eyes. “You alright?”

“‘M fine,” Daryl mutters and stares at the walkers in the loading dock. He sets his jaw. “Fucker was lookin’ at you is all.”

Rick frowns. “ _Looking_ at me?”

Daryl shrugs. “Lookin’ at you.” Not that Daryl doesn’t understand that. Not that Daryl hasn’t looked before. Never like Cropper, never with intent, but Daryl’s not dumb. He’s observant of everything--Rick’s eyes bluer than creek water, the sound that his skin makes as the inside of his knuckles slide across his stubble, the cock of his hips and how they would look when they were _really_ moving, the way that Rick lifts his hand to others, _hovers_ above their skin, but the way that his fingers always land on Daryl, the way that they _touch_.

But Rick has always been too far out there, too high up for Daryl to grasp. He’s the diamond in the store you always pass by in the mall, the tailored suit, the seven thousand dollar machine equipment you wish your shop had and Daryl is very aware of the fact that he could never own him. That Rick is one of those damn shiny priceless things that’s only ever good for window-shopping and what ifs.

 _Just the two of you._ Wouldn’t that be nice.

Rick grunts and lifts the corner of the curtain, stares out it. Daryl follows his line of sight. By now they can see Cropper’s group retreating and it looks pretty full. If they lost people, they didn’t lose many. The walkers begin to follow them into the woods. “Could have taken care of it,” Rick tells Daryl. “Should have waited for dark. They might get pissed at that. Come for revenge.”

“Wasn’t gonna wait,” Daryl says. “Not with him.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Not with him,” Daryl says again and tries to stop grinding his teeth. “Fucker wasn’t gonna touch you.”

Rick slides his gaze over, studies him. “Getting protective of me?” he asks with a smile, with a little chuckle to his voice that’s on that line between _where is this going, I want to know_ and _let’s turn this into a joke so we can forget about it_.

Daryl tells himself to shut up, but it doesn’t work. “Yeah,” he says instead.

Rick blinks. “Daryl--”

“Fucker wasn’t gonna touch you.” Daryl moves from the window, tosses his crossbow in the corner and starts pacing in the small circles he can muster within the enclosed space. “Wasn’t.”

“Well,” Rick says, his voice the slide of cool, even water, “he didn’t.”

“Damn right he didn’t,” Daryl says, his body swaying like a metronome, his muscles unable to stay still.

“You didn’t let him.” Rick pauses, one hand still on the curtain, and then he releases it. He takes a step toward Daryl and Daryl’s eyes snap to his hips like a magnet flying to metal, the twist of his body and the fall of his boot. “You did really well,” Rick says and stops just in front of him, “at taking charge.”

Daryl grunts. “Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“You don’t like it,” Daryl says with a lift of one shoulder, “when people jump over you.”

“I don’t _like it_ ,” Rick tells him and then slides his hand through the air, lets it land softly on Daryl’s shoulder and then squeeze, “when I don’t trust them.”

Daryl swallows and looks away, then shrugs Rick’s hand off himself, turns and starts pacing in his circle again. His veins are on fire and he doesn’t understand why there’s suddenly such a need for him to push the issue, why Rick walking behind him, Rick following the call of his whistle and the turn of his body as they ran is so _important_. Daryl steps away, puts the bed between them. The collar sits on the maroon sheets, discarded and out of place.

“...I liked it,” Rick says into the air between them.

Daryl stops, the movement of his body grating into stillness like a switch flipped off.

“What?”

“ _I liked it_ ,” Rick says and Daryl watches as he pulls his lip into his mouth, worries at it. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, closes his eyes. His other hand is sitting on his hip and it calls to Daryl, burns for him the same as if it was touching his skin. “Earlier...you leading was...comfortable.” Rick swallows. “There’s so much pressure. To…” He trails off and he doesn’t have to fill in the blanks, doesn’t have to say it. The air is heavy with the unspoken things between them--the Governor, Gareth, ...Joe.

Rick shakes his head and drops his hand from his face. “I can’t let go of it. You’re right. I can’t give it to anyone. No one. Except…” Rick looks up and their gazes tumble together. Daryl catalogues the irises of Rick’s eyes, the slope of them, the way his lashes flip to rest against the skin. “Except you.”

Rick takes a step, puts his knees flush against the bed. “Giving it to you feels safe.”

“I want it,” Daryl hears himself say, hears the words grind out of his throat like the mixing of concrete.

“Want wha--”

“To take it from you.”

Rick blinks and his eyes get wider. He straightens his spine, but his hand falls away from his hip just as Daryl bursts into action. He grabs the collar from the bed between them and stalks around it, fists his hand in Rick’s shirt and pushes him, shoves him back into the wall until Rick’s back hits the wood _hard_ , the force of it knocking the standard hotel painting down to the floor.

Daryl plasters himself to Rick like he’s been wanting to do for years and he growls in Rick’s ear, “You want to be my slave, Rick? You really want to be?”

Daryl is so close to him now that when Rick gasps, he can feel it, can feel the air leaving his lungs and then returning. “ _No_ ,” Rick says automatic and then, “who the fuck am I kidding? Yes.”

“I can take it from you,” Daryl says and pushes his body further, slots himself up against Rick so that his leg slides in between his knees. Rick’s hand comes up to his back and digs the nails in so hard that Daryl can feel it through the leather vest and his shirt. “For one _moment_ , I can take all of it from you.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Rick breathes. “ _Take it_.”

Daryl uses his forehead to push Rick’s head into the wall, following through with the motion to put his teeth into Rick’s earlobe. Rick groans and Daryl says, thick, “I can fuck it all out of you until the only thing left for you to think about is _me_.”

“You want that?” Rick asks, breathlessly. “You want to have me?”

“I want to own you,” Daryl says and takes his other hand, digs it into Rick’s hip like he’s always wanted to. “I’ve never owned shit and fuck, if I could pick anything in the whole goddamn world, I’d pick you.”

“Put it on me,” Rick says and he lifts his hips, brushes them up against Daryl’s leg where Daryl can feel him hard and ready. Rick rolls his body like a cat, free and wanton, and for Daryl, there’s no prettier picture in the world.

So Daryl lifts the collar up and wraps it around Rick’s neck, pulls it tight and thinks about those beautiful lines it puts into his skin, the tightness of how it must have felt and the _reminder_ of what’s between them. “Say my name,” he tells Rick and when Rick gasps it out, loud and complete, Daryl grins to himself. “Now don’t say anything else. Not until I tell you.”

Rick nods quickly and stares at him, his pupils blown out until the little blue ring in his eyes sings like a promise. “Beautiful,” he tells Rick and then reaches for Rick’s belt, unhooks it with one quick move and lets the Python fall uselessly at their feet. “Whistle run,” he tells Rick and Rick nods.

Daryl bends down to his neck again and this time when he puts his lips against Rick’s skin, it’s on his throat, right above the collar and it’s hard and rough and claiming. When they get back to the prison, there are sure to be looks, sure to be questions, but Daryl doesn’t give a fuck and by the way that Rick is bucking up to him and moaning, he thinks Rick’s pretty well on board, too. “You’re mine,” Daryl says into his skin, wills the words to sink into Rick’s pores and go straight to his veins and down into his nerves, wills that sentence to become Rick’s DNA. “Everything about you is mine. _This_ ,” Daryl says and digs his nails under the collar, pulls until Rick’s head bends with the force between the wall, the collar, and Daryl, “is mine. _This_ ,” Daryl continues and squeezes Rick’s ass, “is mine. And this,” his hip, “this,” his hair, “this,” his cock, “are all mine. Say yes.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Rick gasps, practically a cry.

“I’m going to fuck you,” Daryl tells him and lets his teeth follow the words to Rick’s jawline, the stubble that’s ever present, “and _nothing_ is going to ever feel like it feels when I’m in you. Is it?”

“ _No_.”

“No one’s ever going to have this, are they?”

“ _No_.”

“Not like I have it.”

“No.”

“Not like I _own it_.”

“No.”

“Who owns you?” Daryl asks and then pulls off, grabs Rick’s chin and forces Rick to look at him, forces the pupils, so dark like voids, to fall into Daryl’s gaze.

Rick holds his eyes for a long time, his mouth open and gasping, his cock hard against Daryl’s leg, his body tilted to Daryl in such _perfect_ calibration that it has to be something like gravity, something like orbital shifting--the aligning of the planets and the moon. “ _You_ ,” Rick says, his voice Southern deep and shaking, “You own me.”

“You’re fucking right I do,” Daryl tells him, “and no one else _ever_ will.”

He grabs the collar and pulls, spins Rick around and throws him down on the bed, following him in that smooth way he has like the whole world is shifting and he has to move to keep up with it. But here, right now, the world is suddenly stark still and solid. Daryl has never really believed in things like facts, cold hard truths, lines in the sand that can n _ever be unbroken_. But if there’s anything true, anything _real_ , it’s Rick on this bed, looking up at him with all the trust in the world, his whole being trembling for him.

Daryl covers him and bites down on his chin, digs his teeth into the stubble and scrapes. His hand goes under Rick’s shirt and starts snapping off buttons, starts sliding its way up and popping them off and with each little sound in the quiet room, with each inch of skin that becomes exposed, they come more together, become more in-tune, until Daryl can practically _feel_ Rick’s body--the thump of his heart, the wild crashing of his veins. “Have you ever been owned, Rick?” Daryl asks him, moves his mouth to Rick’s neck, tongues the outline of the collar on his skin.

“Never.”

“Do you want to be?”

“Yes,” Rick says and arches up his hips. Daryl pops the last of the buttons on his shirt and pulls Rick up, slides his arms out of it and throws it away.

“Can anyone else ever own you?”

“No,” Rick hisses.

“What are you going to do?” Daryl growls and tugs at the fly on Rick’s pants, “If you they try to?”

“Fight them.”

“What if they don’t give up?”

“ _Kill them_.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m _yours_.”

“And no one else’s,” Daryl says, digging his nails into Rick’s scalp, tugging his fingers into his hair and pulling. Daryl watches as Rick’s eyes roll back into his head and he studies him--this _wild_ man below him, the man after Lori, the man after Woodbury, the man after the prison, the man after Terminus, the man after these long and hard months in which they’ve all been trying so fucking hard. It occurs to Daryl that this turn isn’t sudden, isn’t something that just _happens_ one day. It’s the slow progression of their whole lives, the V-formation like how they crashed through the brush toward one another. The natural and right order.

Daryl tugs Rick’s pants down, scrapes his nails across the skin and rids the rest of the clothing on Rick like skin from a squirrel until he’s exposed below him. If Rick wants this, if Rick asked for this--for Daryl to take it away--Daryl will deliver. He leans up and starts throwing off his own clothes, chucks the vest and the shirt in the corner and starts ripping down his own button and fly. Rick grabs his hip before he gets too far, though.

“We need…” he says and trails off.

Daryl frowns, but then grunts. He nods and steps off Rick, stands and walks to the bathroom, digs around until he finds one of those little complimentary bottles of lotion and throws it at Rick, who catches it easily. “Fix yourself,” Daryl commands and Rick does. Daryl watches him as he works, as he lifts those fucking _perfect_ hips and slides his fingers inside himself. They keep eye contact the entire time and it’s glorious.

Daryl steps out of the rest of his clothing and then they’re both ready. Rick smiles up at him as he climbs back on, but Daryl reaches for the collar. He forces his fingers into the gap between the leather and Rick’s throat, causing just enough pressure for Rick to struggle to breath. Daryl watches as his pupils blow out and pauses to see if his lips form a whistle and is satisfied when they don’t. “Didn’t ask you a question,” Daryl tells him. “Didn’t say you could talk.” Rick grunts and the noise is small in his closed off windpipe. “When you talk,” Daryl says and pushes his fingers down, completely cuts off air for just a second before releasing back up, “you’re thinking about something that’s not me. And I don’t like that. Don’t make me happy. And you want me to be happy, don’t you, Rick?”

Daryl lets go of the collar and his cock twitches at how rough Rick’s voice is. “ _Yes_.”

“Because you’re my _bitch_ , aren’t you?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Rick says with wide and pleading eyes.

“Show me,” Daryl says and rocks back, sits on his legs and waits. “Get me excited about you.”

Rick bites his lip, but nods, and leans up on his elbows. He scans down Daryl’s body and opens his mouth, but closes it. Daryl arches an eyebrow. “Got a question?”

“Can I touch you?” Rick asks.

“Fuck no,” Daryl tells him and takes himself into his hand to make a point. “You don’t deserve it yet. You just show me what I want to see.”

Rick nods and snaps his mouth shut. He starts with a roll of his hips, arching them toward Daryl so that Daryl can see how hard he is, how ready. He keeps eye contact the entire time and then slowly starts to roll over. Daryl’s breath hitches in his throat as he watches Rick get on all fours, watches him bend his head down so it lays against the bed and lift his ass up to Daryl and then _spread_ his legs out so nicely, so prettily. Daryl releases his own cock from where he’s touching it. If he keeps doing that, this is all going to be over.

Rick doesn’t say anything, doesn’t voice things like _I want you_ or _fuck me_ or _I’m ready_. He’s a good boy and keeps the words from flowing out of his mouth, but the slow tick up and down of his hips says it all.

So Daryl takes pity on him. He grunts and moves up, places his hand on Rick’s hip and listens to Rick’s hiss of breath as they make skin contact. “I’m going to fuck you,” Daryl tells him and puts his fingers on the small of Rick’s back, presses him down into the mattress. “And you better hope you got yourself ready, because I’m not going to just tiptoe inside. I’m going to slam in and I’m going to fuck you so hard into this mattress, you’re going to forget every fucking word you know except one. Except for just that one, Rick. You’re going to forget your own goddamn _name_ , but you’re going to remember one word. And you know what one it is, baby? You know what one I want to hear?”

“ _Daryl_ ,” Rick breathes out and Daryl chuckles.

“Yeah,” he says, “‘cause that’s all you are, huh? All you are is my property.” He slides his hand up across the skin of Rick’s back, tangles it in his wavy curls and pulls. “All you are is _mine_.”

Rick whimpers and starts pushing his ass back onto Daryl’s groin. Daryl chuckles at him and angles himself, puts his dick right up against Rick’s opening. He holds Rick’s hips in place with nails digging into flesh and then, when he’s damn well ready to go, he growls, “Tell me you want to be my bitch.”

And even though those are the words he asked to hear, even though those are the words he wanted spoken out between them with Rick’s legs spread, with his chest heaving, and the pink collar so goddamn _pretty_ against his throat, Rick takes it one step further, takes the sentence and twists it into the thing that Daryl doesn’t want, but _needs_. “I _am_ your bitch,” he breathes.

And then Daryl slams inside. He goes all the way in, as far and as hard as he can and Rick cries out with it, his body slammed up on the bed. He digs his nails into the crappy maroon sheets below him and scrapes his hand so hard that he digs a tear in the fabric. “ _Fuck_ ,” he moans, but Daryl grabs the collar and squeezes again.

“Don’t talk,” he says and pulls out, thrusts in again, watches where Rick has his head tilted to the side, pressed into the bedspread, his eyes rolled back in his head.

“I won’t--”

“That’s _talking_ ,” Daryl says and slams in again, is satisfied by Rick’s little cry, but also by the buck of his hips as they take Daryl, guide him in and then out. “My little bitch,” Daryl growls and bends forward, presses his front to Rick’s back and growls in his ear, “does what I say.” Daryl pulls out and shoves himself back inside again, listens as Rick gasps. “And I say _no talking_.”

Rick nods and Daryl grunts his approval. He reaches around with one hand and takes Rick into his hand, feels him hard and leaking. With his other, he holds Rick in place and with his body, he pushes Rick into the mattress, pins him between the hard, solid muscles of Daryl as they pound into him and the scratchy feel of the sheets underneath. Being inside Rick is better than Daryl ever thought it could be, better than any of those brief and fleeting times in which he let himself imagine. Rick’s body is hot and tight, but it also bends for him, dips and weaves and takes and gives in just the perfect way like everything else they do--shared movement between two bodies.

Rick doesn’t talk, but he’s not silent. His throat releases little gasps and little cries, and then deep grunts and rumbling moans. Daryl becomes fascinated with how Rick sounds, with how each thrust, hard and bruising, gets something else out of him and when Daryl _finds_ it, when he angles just right and _hits_ it, Rick falls apart for him, becomes putty underneath his hands, writhing and squirming and trying to crawl up onto Daryl even more completely.

“You’re everything I ever wanted,” Daryl tells him, growls it loud and rough into his ear. “I’ve always wanted every _fucking_ inch of you.”

Rick moans and presses his body up to Daryl, rolls his flesh into him like symmetry, tries to fall open for Daryl even more.

“Tell me,” Daryl asks him and then puts his mouth on the leather collar, kisses it on the edge so that his lips touch both the rhinestones and the sweat of Rick’s flesh, “what you’re thinking about.”

“ _You_.”

“What else?”

“ _Nothing else_.”

“Do you feel owned, Rick?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Possessed?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Loved?” Daryl asks against the back of Rick’s neck, kisses it lightly at the same time that he shoves in as hard as he fucking can.

“Yes,” Rick whispers underneath him.

“Good,” Daryl tells his skin, “because I’m so fucking close. Are you?” He doesn’t need the answer, can feel it in the throb of Rick’s cock in his hand, in the way that Rick’s hips buck without any rhythm.

Rick just nods against the mattress, feverish and quick. Daryl wraps his arm around Rick’s stomach to hold him in place and then pulls out all the way, pauses, and then hits back inside, pulls Rick’s body to him at the same time that he snaps himself forward and any words that Rick might have tried to form fall into a jumble of incoherent breathy groans. Daryl does it again and bites his own lip, loses himself in the feel of his cock deep inside, in the feel of their bodies jutting together. “I’m going to come,” he says, his voice broken and rough like sandpaper, “and you’re going to _take it_ \--”

“-- _yes_ \--”

“--and nothing--”

“-- _yes_ \--”

“--is ever going to feel--”

“-- _yes_ \--”

“--as complete--”

“-- _yes_ \--”

“--as when I finish inside you. As when I _make you mine_.”

“ _DARYL_ ,” Rick says and then that’s it. That’s all that Daryl can stand. With one final push, with one thrust forward and one pull of Rick’s body back to him, he’s coming. Daryl drags Rick further down the bed at the end of the thrust and Rick’s nails catch in the rip he’s made in the sheets, drag it out and make it worse. Daryl starts to lose himself in Rick and Rick follows just a bare second afterwards, following Daryl’s lead like he’s done all day, like he’ll _continue_ to do forever.

Daryl keeps thrusting slowly until it’s over, lets every second of it drag on and last. Rick is stiff below him at first in his own release and then his muscles slowly start to tick downward. His skin starts to tremble and his legs start to shake and Daryl pulls out of him slow and even and lets Rick collapse on the bed, let’s Rick’s body fall into disarray. Daryl stays kneeling for a moment until he catches his own breath and then he tugs the sheets out from under Rick so that he can pull them over both of them. He wraps his arm around Rick’s chest and pulls Rick up against him to hold him there and Rick follows like a ragdoll, no tension in any of his muscles.

Rick doesn’t say anything for a long, long time and Daryl lets him keep the silence. The afternoon slowly slides into evening and the light goes farther west. Daryl can’t remember the last time he’s seen Rick so relaxed, so at ease, at _peace_. Possibly never. And fuck, Daryl thinks, the man deserves it. So he pulls Rick’s skin to him and draws patterns on it with the tips of his fingers, places his lips in Rick’s hair and lightly kisses. After time has passed, Daryl reaches up and unbuckles the collar, slips it off Rick and sets it on the nightstand. Rick doesn’t say anything, but he does smile, blink his pretty eyelashes and curve his body to Daryl like the earth craving the sun.

“Get what you wanted?” Rick finally asks when the light is only slivers in the room, when they are covered in familiar darkness and each other’s body heat.

“Mmm hmm,” Daryl says and kisses his hair again. “You?”

“Yeah,” Rick says and the word on his lips sounds like _such_ a relief that it breaks Daryl’s heart.

“I love you,” Daryl says, because he does. “I’d give you anything.”

“You _have_ ,” Rick whispers. “You’ve given me everything.”

“Even though I said I owned you?” Daryl chuckles into his ear.

In the low light, Daryl sees Rick smile. “You have for awhile now,” he tells Daryl, “and I love you for it. For all of it. I love every bit of you.”

Daryl stares at him, at the way his gaze ducks and then curves up to meet Daryl’s. It’s too dark to see color now, but Daryl doesn’t need to. The exact shade of Rick’s eyes is imprinted so far into his memory that things like his first cigarette and how his momma said the word lullaby will go far before he forgets that blue. “Can I kiss you?” he asks Rick, whispers it out so soft against his mouth that it’s basically just an exchange of his lips to Rick’s already.

“Yes,” Rick says back, the movement touching Daryl’s mouth and drawing him inside. Daryl moves forward, turns his head and lets them fall together like they’ve been so desperately wanting to. Rick’s mouth is open and pliant and Rick lets Daryl take the lead, lets Daryl dive in and explore, curve until it’s lips and teeth and tongues and the first breeze of autumn, the first blade of grass in the spring. Daryl puts his hand so gently on Rick’s cheek and holds him and Rick puts his own fingers against Daryl’s neck, presses in hard like he never does with anyone else, clings like he never will unless it’s just the two of them.

They break away so slowly that neither one of them can tell what time it’s become. The last of the dusk has faded into pure night and the shitty hotel is silent and dark. Daryl pulls Rick to him like he’s pulling in his own flesh, slides Rick up like Rick is just an extension of his own self.

“Think we’re going to have to keep the collar,” Daryl whispers into his hair and Rick laughs. It’s a sound that Daryl has never heard, wild and free and as light as evaporating condensation, and Rick dips his head, puts it right under Daryl’s chin and curls himself toward him.

“Can I have something other than pink?” he asks Daryl and Daryl chuckles.

“Kind of like it,” he says, his fingers sliding on Rick’s skin, painting him. “You’re like my pretty princess.”

“Fuck you,” Rick laughs and wraps his arms around Daryl’s body.

“That’s only one thing I want to do with you, baby,” Daryl tells him, the smile in his voice and the bubble in his heart contagious.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr Links:  
> [MAE's Rickyl Fics and Recs](http://maerickyl.tumblr.com/): Where you can find a list of my fanfic, fanfic recs, and snippets of works in progress.  
> [Michelle A. Emerlind](http://michelleaemerlind.tumblr.com/): My general tumblr where I put stuff? And things? And just whatever I want.


End file.
